‘Nothing speaks like money.' Republican Senator wants Ohio higher education funds tied to new law
State Sen. Jerry Cirino, R-Kirtland, spoke during a forum at the City Club of Cleveland. (Screenshot).
A Republican Ohio Senator wants higher education appropriations to be tied to compliance to Senate Bill 1, the new higher education law banning diversity efforts and regulating classroom discussion that will take effect this summer.
'We're not kidding around,' State Sen. Jerry Cirino, R-Kirtland, said Thursday during a City Club of Cleveland forum. 'This law will not be ignored. It will be welcomed. … We're going to make sure that all the work we've done doesn't go to waste because it's being ignored. We're going to make sure it happens and nothing speaks like money.'
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The new law will ban diversity efforts, prohibit faculty strikes, regulate classroom discussion of 'controversial' topics, create post-tenure reviews, put diversity scholarships at risk, create a retrenchment provision that block unions from negotiating on tenure, shorten university board of trustees terms from nine years down to six years, and require students take an American history course, among other things.
Cirino introduced S.B. 1 earlier this year which quickly passed the Ohio Senate and House. Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine signed S.B. 1 into law at the end of March and it will take effect on June 27. Members of the Youngstown State University's chapter of the Ohio Education Association are collecting signatures in the hopes of trying to get a referendum on the Nov. 4 ballot.
'Opponents of Senate Bill 1 have said it will destroy higher education in Ohio,' Cirino said. 'Well, the governor signed the bill a couple of weeks ago, and to my knowledge, higher education is still pretty well intact in the state of Ohio.'
More than 1,500 people testified against S.B. 1 — including many college students, faculty and staff who said they would leave Ohio if this bill became law.
'Certainly for some of them that would be OK,' Cirino said. 'Some of the ones who came to testify, I will help them pack.'
The Ohio Capital Journal recently talked to a Cleveland State University student who is transferring to a New York university after spring semester because of the new law.
Cirino talked about the need for a higher education law like this given 'the predominance of left-leaning faculty, which has skewed things on our campuses.'
'Without the very best educational system, we will not have a properly trained workforce, and without a trained workforce, we will not have a robust economy here in Ohio,' Cirino said. 'If our universities and community colleges are fixated on DEI, separating students by race and hiring professors who follow a monolithic liberal agenda, we are not preparing our students to learn how to analyze research and come to their own conclusions.'
Cirino said the new law creates more opportunities for speech, reiterated that it's not anti-union and makes education available to everyone.
'Some of our universities have been spending tens of millions of dollars on infrastructure for DEI which has become institutional discrimination,' he said. 'You can't solve discrimination by having other discrimination. The best way to eliminate discrimination is to eliminate discrimination.'
The new law also bans faculty strikes, something Cirino said is a student rights issue, not a labor issue.
'When a student signs up for a semester and pays for it, that's a contract between them and the university,' he said. 'Nothing should interrupt that. Nothing at all.'
Even though the law only applies to Ohio's public universities and community colleges, private colleges would be required to comply with parts of S.B.1 if they want to continue to participate in the Governor's Merit Scholarship, according to language from the House's version of the budget. The budget is now in the hands of the Senate where Cirino is the chair of the Senate Finance Committee.
Follow Capital Journal Reporter Megan Henry on Bluesky.
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